


simply, murder

by t4tterdemalion



Series: there are flowers, also, in hell [2]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: (mentioned) - Freeform, Comfort, Episode: s04e16 Pleasure is My Business, Fluff and Angst, I don't know man, M/M, Minor Character Death, Reid what is going on with you, i just, tagged teen for mentions of death, the unsub is mentioned, they talk on the jet again, timeskip kind of because I went from s04ep02 to s04ep16 LMAO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29637816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t4tterdemalion/pseuds/t4tterdemalion
Summary: Reid smiles, and it’s barely stable. “She was right. You’re one of the last good men in the world.”
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid
Series: there are flowers, also, in hell [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2177757
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45





	simply, murder

**Author's Note:**

> “were it not for that  
> there would have been  
> no poem but the world  
> if we had remembered,  
> those crimson petals  
> spilled among the stones,  
> would have called it simply  
> murder.“  
> \- asphodel, that greeny flower, by William Carlos Williams 
> 
> just two guys being dudes, having an emotional conversation on the jet again  
> reid is fucking gone over hotch if you hadn't noticed and this is quite the time skip from the first work, so hotch is slowly starting to figure it out *rolls eyes* he'll get there  
> anyway I sort of assumed at this point that they would be more tactile with each other and Aaron would have learned to trust that he can reach out to Reid for physical contact but I skipped the development of that bc I accidentally didn't write about the intervening episodes oops  
> if you want clarification on what the hell is going on with Reid in this one skip to the end where I rant in the notes and then go back and read the work because I have some weird interpretations and shit I noticed about him in this episode that are what I based this work on
> 
> pls enjoy!! I know its short but another multi-chapter work is coming RIGHT after this one!

“She was very beautiful, wasn’t she.”

Aaron looks up and meets Reid’s eyes. There’s something different there. Reid doesn’t usually look this…bothered, at least not when he’s looking at Aaron.

“You saw her in your hotel. Did she speak to you?”

“She did.”

“What did you think?”

This feels weirdly like a test. “Not much. I noticed she was attractive. She pushed my floor button for me. Is there a reason you’re asking?”

“She had a certain honesty that I admire.” Reid looks away, takes a shaky breath. “She died holding your hand, didn’t she. Looking at you. She made you promise to stay with her, and you stayed with her. You held her hand as she died, and I don’t understand how—“

Aaron is stunned into silence. Reid is never like this, he hasn’t been like this since the last time he’d seen his mother, and that was when he’d been having nightmares about recovering his childhood trauma. “Spencer, what are you talking about?”

“I understand her fixation more than I would like. What I don’t understand is how, how you can be so good, Aaron. You’re so good. How do you do that?”

 _Her fixation?_ “She was an unsub, she was traumatized. I was doing my job.“

Reid is looking right at him now. “You carried out her last wishes, Aaron. You could have lied to her, and you didn’t.”

 _Aaron_ , echoes Megan’s voice inside his head, and he feels her hand cold in his. He looks at Reid, and he tells the truth. “I— I couldn’t make her into an object, a fetishized idea of a killer prostitute to be breaking news. That’s just another way for her to disappear. She needed to mean something.”

Reid smiles, and it’s barely stable. “She was right. You’re one of the last good men in the world.”

Aaron very suddenly needs to touch him, and he reaches across the space between them steadily but cautiously, giving Reid time to back away. Reid practically melts into Aaron’s hand on his wrist, so Aaron wraps his fingers around Reid’s slim forearm and lets them slip under where his sleeve is rolled to touch the softness of his inner arm. Reid’s eyelashes might actually flutter at the sensation.

He’s so alive. When Aaron had held Megan Kane’s hand, her skin had been so perfectly smooth and cold that he could have sworn she was already gone. Reid is bursting with life, his pulse fast and cheeks pink and skin warm, messy and brilliant and watching Aaron like he’s something fascinating and undiscovered.

Aaron clears his throat. He might be blushing, but that’s unconfirmed. “Do you really think that?”

“Are you kidding?” Reid’s eyes are very soft, and warm, and endlessly intelligent. “Yes, of course I do.”

They’re leaning together over the little table in the front of the jet, everyone else talking or reading or passed out. Aaron thinks fleetingly, desperately, about the quiet kiss, the feeling of Reid’s hands, and lets go of Reid’s arm, leaning back into his chair.

Reid smiles again, this one rueful, and settles back into his own seat. “I think you’re a good man, Aaron Hotchner.” 

Aaron sighs, closing his eyes, slouching a little. “Every man that hasn’t had a chance to show their faults is good.” He stretches his legs out slowly, the tip of his Oxford just touching the toe of one of Reid’s Converse.

“It’s hard to find faults in someone like you.” Reid’s voice is quiet, serious, but slightly teasing. “Five years and I haven’t seen you stumble. But, then again, maybe that’s because we’re always rooting for you.”

Aaron cracks his eyes open to see Reid looking down at his book very studiously, a little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He ignores the fact that he can feel the same smile on his own face, and settles in to get some rest. “Thank you, Spencer.”

“You’re welcome.”

Their feet get entirely tangled together under the table over the next couple hours of the flight, and Aaron falls asleep, and wakes up in time to stop Reid from falling flat on his face while trying to extricate himself.

Reid is embarrassed enough to let Aaron carry his go bag to the waiting cars, and he gives Aaron an unnecessary apology and an adorable smile when he bids Aaron goodnight.

Aaron gets in his own car and tells himself again how stupid it would be to be a middle-aged FBI agent with a crush on his genius subordinate, who is probably about 20 years younger than him. The problem with that is, he’s starting to come up with counterarguments, and one of them is that Spencer Reid might be nursing a reciprocal crush on him.

For years, actually.

Aaron sighs deeply and pulls out of the parking lot. Hopefully he doesn’t crash because he’s pondering the scent of Reid’s hand lotion like a creep. Again. 

**Author's Note:**

> okay so you're here and I'm gonna talk about this episode  
> this work is sort of entirely based on Reid’s expressions in s4ep16, when Megan called into her own penthouse and said “Aaron” and then hotch actually picked up the phone and spoke to her Reid looked like he was like.....I don’t even know how to describe it  
> He looked like he was yearning?????? in a really weird way???  
> PERSONALLY I think he was:  
> 1) worried about hotch being targeted by the unsub  
> 2) jealous of Hotch’s attention to her in a weird fucked up way which he knows objectively is absurd because she’s traumatized and disturbed but I don’t think he could help being a little jealous, and he's weirded out by the fact the he feels strongly enough about hotch to be irrationally jealous  
> 3) stunned by how fucking incredibly noble hotch is and relating to the unsub because of that and also being a little weirded out by that  
> And then when hotch was like “I saw her in the elevator of my hotel two nights ago” Reid stared at him for WAY too long and he looked like, stunned, and almost HURT?? I can’t imagine how he would have reacted to the ending of the episode so that's kinda where this came from  
> also to be clear: he doesn't blame hotch for trying to help megan, and he isn't like, MAD about it, he's kind of just freaking out about his own feelings about the situation and how much he understands megan's pov  
> okay about the quote:  
> the quote I chose is more about the episode than the fic but it's just too perfect because to me it's about the world perceiving something as simply murder but it actually meaning much more, and that's what this episode is about  
> actually I guess it kind of is about the fic because they're both sort of dancing around understanding what the other is saying and perceiving it as something else  
> just realized how fucking long this note is for literally a 800 word fic but I think way too much about this show so I have to dump it somewhere jshdjfhsgfjhkjs
> 
> there's not a lot of people that will ever read this, so if you do.....  
> tell me something in the comments. leave it here for me to find.  
> it doesn't have to be about the story.  
> it just has to be real.


End file.
